College offers 5th online class

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College offers 5th online class

In late February, Hillsdale College will begin its fifth online course: American Heritage.

The online courses project, started as an educational and outreach program intended to involve friends of the school, began in late 2011 as a lecture series on the Constitution by President Larry Arnn. Since then, the college has put together online classes for Constitution 101, Constitution 201, Western Heritage, and now American Heritage.

These 10-week courses feature one lecture each week that is archived and available for viewing at the convenience of participants.

“This is an educational outreach thing just like we’ve done with Imprimis for years,” said Fred Hadra, director of online programs. “It’s an opportunity for folks to learn from us. It’s also a great way to bring in new friends and support for the college.”

Around 185,000 people signed up for the first lecture series. The high interest rates for the series compelled the school to produce more online learning opportunities.

The second class, Constitution 101, began in the spring of 2012. More than 290,000 people have signed up to date. More than 75,000 people have signed up for the Constitution 201 course, and high rates of people continue to register.

The popularity of the Constitution courses led the school to expand the online selection to Western Heritage and now American Heritage.

“What we see is people are very excited to do these things and then the reality of busy schedules catch up with people,” Hadra said. “But that’s why I think it’s good that we do the courses the way we do where we make them available online for people to go through at their leisure.”

Filming for the American Heritage class will take place during the last week of January in the Heritage Room.

“The college stands greatly to benefit from all of the online courses and already has from the Constitution classes and the most recent one on ‘The Western Heritage,’” said Professor of History Tom Conner, who is also a lecturer for the online American Heritage course. “The Internet is a wonderful way to bring many thousands of people all over the country into contact with at least a taste of what we do here in our classrooms.”

Each time a new course is added, new features are implemented to enhance the learning experience. Reading excerpts from the college readers, reading quizzes, question-answer sessions with the lecturers, and discussion boards have all been added since the first lecture series.

Participants can take a final quiz at the conclusion of a course to receive a completion certificate, though no official college credit is awarded for these courses. To date, nearly 35,000 completion certificates have been sent for the Constitution 101 and Constitution 201 courses.

“That was an exciting thing for people to say they were kind of getting a mini experience of the course that students get here on campus,” Hadra said.

Many colleges and organizations across the nation have similar free online courses that place a camera in a classroom and put the video online. Hillsdale’s method, however, features a lecture specifically written for the online course that is distinct from any in-class lectures.

Hillsdale’s approach makes more distinct boundaries for what paying students are receiving and what the online course offers.

Hadra says the school is progressing one step at a time to ensure the most effective and useful products are put into these online courses.

“This is education that’s important for the country,” Hadra said.  “If we don’t do it, who else does it?”